Have you ever been so utterly frustrated that your mind becomes so confoundingly disconcerted that you start cleaning your room to find some semblance of clarity? I look around to decide where I should begin and I find a world of unexplored possibilities. I realise that there are areas within my room I never really bothered to tread into. All this time, I thought my room to be quite spacious but as it turns out what makes it so are the areas I rarely employ. Quite ironically, the areas in the room I rarely make use of appear to be in the greatest need of care.

As always is the case with physical activity pursued in the time of dilemma, I find it necessary to put on music of the somber and reflective kind. Melodies of any origin, I feel, have the power to hypnotise and propel its listeners to a dopamine-laden realm that falls right along the lines that separate reality from fantasy. It is not quite the latter because the eyes don’t entirely relinquish control over vision to the mind and yet not also the former because rationality gives way to the yearning of the heart.

I decide to begin with my study table that has a desktop computer, a pair of speakers, a few discarded twenty rupee notes and a handful of books and papers. I swipe the visible surface of the table with a piece of cloth in one continuous motion and I see the dichotomy between clean and unclean. Even though the table is halfway from being spotless, the division I brought upon makes it look a lot less appealing than it previously did. As in life, there is nothing more ugly than an incomplete effort. I set aside the items one by one and eventually restore balance. Job well done, I say to myself. But as I take a step back and I am greeted with a wider view and I realise the celebrations were a bit premature. After all there is more to a table than just its surface.

I crouch on one knee and I start wiping the drawers, followed by the foot rest, the keyboard compartment and finally the legs. The question then arises. What exactly is the singular object that we call a table? I am reminded of the Google verification process, in which I am from time to time asked to select all squares with fire hydrants, traffic lights and so on. On occasions the squares divide the subject into such small portions that it becomes difficult for me to both admit or dismiss its status as the whole. What am I to do when one third of only one of the three traffic lights falls inside the boundaries of a square? Surely that’s not what comes to mind when thinking about traffic lights but if we are to compartmentalise, aren’t we essentially killing the identity of the whole? And as such, is any attempt to find it in parts a vain endeavour to begin with?

Unless you want me to look at everything as atoms, in which case the discussion will turn too philosophical for a ruthless tech monopoly, and I’d say “Sorry, Google, but there are no squares with traffic lights.” I could even make the case grammatically. Isn’t it the alliance of red, yellow and green that gives the subsequent term its plural nature? But let's not drift too far away on semantics. That is not a hill worth dying on. I get back up and grab a broom from the cupboard, a piece of furniture which not long ago only served as a prop for my make-believe quidditch matches during the days of Harry Potter. I start from the corner of the room and with four swipes reach the middle, bringing with me chocolate wrappers, hair strands and what I can only describe as a fluffy amalgamation of all the different varieties of dust and dirt. The more waste my broom brings in, the more delighted I become even though the correlation only serves as evidence of improper hygiene.

I don’t frequently embark on cleaning crusades, but on the occasions I do, I want to make sure my efforts lead to immaculate outcomes. The only problem is that everytime I look back at the patch I’ve gone over, it feels as if I have missed a spot. Time is of essence and I realise that if I continue to re-sweep again and again, aiming for the pristine, my phone is going to run out of battery after which the repetitive action without the moral support of music is going to push me down the hill of nihilism - of the real kind and not merely a rip off from the quote book. After fifteen minutes, I set the broom aside and start with the inspection. The table is clean, the floor I walk on is clean, the bookshelf has been dusted, and the cobwebs above my door have been cleared. I then look at my bed which certainly could do with a change of bedsheet but seeing that a good stretch appears as good I settle for a compromise.

I take a deep sigh, and as I am about to lay the broom to rest and mark the completion of my crusade, I notice the tip of one of my socks peeking at me expectantly from under the bed. Like a good companion, I come to the sock’s rescue, and as I do, I reminisce about my early days on this planet when I was convinced about the existence of ghosts and devils, who I thought would emerge from the dark abyss that lay under my bed. But now that I am an adult and have far more sinister things to watch out for, the same wretched spot that always haunted my nights, I find, is nothing more than a peaceful enclave. I think about taking a look at what other lost treasures I can recoup but I find myself being restrained by a voice inside my head. Because I cannot only partly see and I can’t unsee what I’ve seen in its entirety, it is best that what remains unseen go unnoticed for if I were to see that which I don’t want to see, I would either have to be blind or be fighting an avoidable battle.